A lady of a certain ethnicity with whom I unfortunately or not, shared the same assignment group with in today's training session seriously had some issues. We had some role playing exercise in a team of four. There was a moderator, an author, a recorder and a reader who were suppose to work together to perform a peer review on a certain exercise given by the trainer. And so we got down to business to look for discrepancies in the given case. Things were fine at first, most members of the group were from my team, so it was alright. Until I noticed that this lady was actually 'ignoring' comments made by me, brushing off my opinions, and giving mocking remarks as though I was too stupid to understand the objective of the assignment. Her remarks showed a lack of respect and confidence over my capabilities. Even the other group mates were quite 'taken aback' by her behaviour, as she literally counteracted any given opinion. The best part of it was, the case was a fictional case, it wasn't a real life scenario and she wasn't even the actual owner of it! It was only a case study come on!
The perception that I could deduce from her behaviour was that just because she had more technical knowledge, she felt she was smarter than all of us put together. Just because she knows what JAVA classes mean and how to code methods (or something), she thought she had a right to 'mock' our knowledge as being 'shallow', 'inexperienced' and 'dumb'. Well, I may not have been born with JAVA coding skills in my blood, or passion to slave my life over CVSes or packages, but at least I am not so blind as to see that she has bigger Pride than Personality. This wasn't the first time that I'd encountered such behaviour from her. In another instance from before, we were (fated?) in the same team, and was working in an activity when I noticed how 'unpleased' she was when (unfortunately) yours truly was given the task to write the presentation. It was like 'she's not good enough to contribute, why let her?!' At least that was what I could feel from the vibe that she let out. Thank God I was not born blonde. I may have been assasinated then.
Sometimes I wonder if her behaviour stemmed from the feeling of 'inferiority complex' and the need to put others down to make her feel superior. True, she may have a long 'list' of pe-degrees ('pedigree' of bachelor and masters, perhaps some President's Award?!) but even with my humble second class bachelor qualification, I know that those do not give you the right to disrespect and mock the opinions or in this case, the intelligence of others and behave as though you are the winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize.
However, perhaps it is me who need the confidence boost for my capability so as to be able to handle the situation and deal with conceited individuals.
Anyway, in today's incident, I'd told myself to close one eye, and not get emotional about the whole issue, and learn to handle it rationally. It is after all, WORK. So I pulled a straight face, and contributed where I thought was necessary, and let her strut her intelligence around. I had nothing to lose anyway.
I guess I had actually learnt something from that training today. Swallow your Pride and learn to be Humble. That's the only way to earn others' respect and gain credit for your ability.
I seriously hope someone tells her that someday.
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7 comments:
i think this woman is jealous of u! perhaps she looks at u as a threat hence tat horrible behaviour. anyway, if she's not an important figure in ur company, then u should tell her off sarcastically!!!
I have always thought of programmers or pple doing coding as the lower class of the IT industry... and it's a fact. It's a diploma level job for christ sake!?
Should just give her back that same kind of treatment for a taste of her own medicine... ;Þ
PSH u may have as well offended half of Singapore's population!
Haha...developer or rank or not, she certainly needs to give her personality a reality check!
I do not want to waste my energy thinking of nasty things to say to her.Scorpions are silent killers (hehe!)
Despite working for many years, I still find it difficult to handle the type of people you described! :)
I just try to do the same that you mentioned - swallow my pride, try to be humble and just get the job done :D
yea.. rasa-rasa pearly is right.. jealous of u... :-p
I think like video game gua.. sometime, the game challenge us different obstacle.. Then, we can jump over or use secret power to destroy it or ... but for sure, we will gain bonus points after it..
:-D and get ready for the next challenge.
work is a game. love is a game.. life is a game..
Johnny Mok your name reminds me of Mr Bean's character 'Johnny English' :P
And I had a dog called Johnny once too haha! He had a black face and white body..:P
Anyway, all games must be played fair right?
miss kay.. merdeka is coming.. ada apa-apa nak cakap?
:-p
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